by John Solomon at Just the News
Long estranged from the 45th president, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney tried recently to make hay against Donald Trump by suggesting he never ordered National Guard troops to the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots. But her attack misconstrues Pentagon procedures and is undercut by her own father’s actions as defense secretary during the 1992 Rodney King riots.
In modern history, the Defense Department has interpreted its obligations under the Posse Comitatus Act passed in 1878 to mean that National Guard troops can’t be ordered into action for civil unrest in American localities unless they are requested by local authorities, such as a mayor, police chief or governor, according to a historical analysis of the Pentagon’s compliance with the law.
The practice is for a president to authorize his defense secretary to deploy troops in times of crisis upon receipt of a request and then let the Pentagon order deployment once that plea for help is made
That’s what Trump did in the days before the Jan. 6 riot, and what President George H.W. Bush and then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney did during the violence that exploded in Los Angeles in the spring of 1992 after a jury acquitted police officers in the attack on Rodney King, according to the 2018 historical review from the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth. That study acknowledged there remains much ambiguity about how the law applies to federal troop deployments on U.S. soil.
Cheney’s authorization for troops to be ready in 1992 came…
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